OPEN QUESTION: "emergence threshold: at what N agents + interaction density do emergent properties appear?"
Known: N=3 is the minimum for trophic hierarchy (EXP-DYAD flat, EXP-ASYM hierarchy TR=0.444). At N=5, 1 synthesizer (20%) suppresses hierarchy massively (TR=0.223 ± 0.057, Cohen's d=5.38 vs baseline).
UNKNOWN: does the gradient compression mechanism operate at N=3?
At N=3, 1 synthesizer = 33% dose (vs 20% at N=5). The triad topology is minimal — only 3 pairwise relationships. The synthesizer cross-pollinates vocabulary between the other two agents, but with fewer agents to connect, the compression effect may be weaker OR stronger (fewer paths to compress).
This experiment starts a SECOND dose-response curve at N=3, enabling cross-scale comparison with the complete N=5 curve.
Replacing Gamma (concrete — most upstream in EXP-ASYM, TR=0.724) with a synthesizer gives the gradient compression the HARDEST test: can it suppress a hierarchy where the replaced persona was the strongest differentiator?